Religion and the Social Sciences Unit
The Religion and Social Sciences Unit (RSS) supports scholarship at the intersection of the social sciences and religious or theological studies. Topic areas include the study of religious and theological questions through specific social scientific methodologies, the integration of theological and social scientific approaches to the study of religious communities and practices, and comparative assessments of current issues by humanities-based and social scientific methods. As always, we welcome proposals related to these topics.
For the 2023 meeting in San Antonio, we are also especially interested in paper and/or panel proposals that offer social scientific methodological and/or theoretical analyses in regard to:
Translating Social Scientific Research on Religion for Social Policy and Practitioners
Connecting to the 2023 conference theme, “La Labor de Nuestras Manos” (“the work of our hands”), we invite papers exploring how social scientific research on religion can be or is translational for social policy and professional practitioners in fields such as social work, public health, medicine, law, and philanthropy. We are especially interested in papers that critically reflect on what it means to effectively translate scholarly work on religion so that it can be useful for specific groups/areas of practitioners on the ground, and also how the expertise and needs of practitioners can, or should, inform scholarly research.
Race, Religion, and Social Justice Movements
Also connecting to the 2023 conference theme “La Labor de Nuestras Manos” (“the work of our hands”), we invite papers using social science methods/theory that explore how religion and spirituality intersect with movements for social change, especially those confronting white supremacy, anti-Blackness, anti-Asian hate, anti-Muslim racism, and anti-Jewish racism. We are especially interested in how religion or spirituality are deployed by individuals and groups on the ground in quests for racial justice and equity, as well as intersectional movement work that seeks to address multiple and overlapping forms of injustice. Finally, we invite papers that compare different models and structures of activism or address changing modes of activism in response to the contemporary moment.
Myth, Conspiracy, and Religious and Scientific Authority
As the COVID-19 pandemic becomes endemic, so have anti-scientific myths and conspiracies. The politicization of the pandemic and normalization of conspiracy cults like QAnon have made apocalyptic logics and myths an entrenched feature of American political culture. We invite papers offering social scientific analyses of authoritative discourse in religion and science as it relates to myth, apocalypticism, and conspiracy in our current moment. Papers may also explore intersections between religious and scientific authority as well as how authority is legitimated and contested in the contemporary moment, both in the United States and transnationally.
Religion and the Mental Health Crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to an unprecedented crisis of mental health care, leading to high levels of burnout among care providers and a shortage of mental health resources relative to need. We invite papers that offer social scientific analyses of how the mental health crisis has intersected with spirituality and with religious leaders, communities, and cultures. Examples might include, but are not limited to, clergy burnout and how the so-called “great resignation” has played out among clergy and religious leaders, how religious leaders and communities have addressed mental health needs in their congregations and communities, and the role of spirituality in mental health.
In his 2012 book Humanitarian Reason, Didier Fassin argues that the lasting presence of religion, specifically Christianity, can be seen in the ascendency of humanitarian values in Western democratic societies. The primacy of “humanitarian reason,” Fassin contends, elevates the redemptive work of individual and state humanitarian actors and virtues of compassion and charity over the political actions, historical struggles, and subjectivities of those Howard Thurman calls the “disinherited.” This form of response to an unequal world order all too often reifies victimhood and dominant power relations, and commodifies/valorizes the suffering of “others.” Inspired by and in dialogue with Fassin’s work, we seek paper proposals that explore:
- Religious and/or secular (moral) logics of humanitarianism, including but not exclusive to Christianity
- How humanitarian discourse, ideals, and practices have been mobilized in specific contexts or within international development across space and time
- Contemporary faith-based or religiously-informed humanitarian movements and responses
- Relationship between humanitarianism and liberation/decolonial movements (and critiques)
- How humanitarian reason (and the valorization of suffering) gets taken up or contested in international development work
- Affective links between compassion and moral action
- Political theologies of humanitarianism
Religion in the Post-Dobbs Era (co-sponsored with the Bioethics and Religion Unit)
We invite papers/panels to address post-Dobbs abortion issues as ethical matters, reproductive justice, or other religious perspectives. This broad call can include consequences of the Dobbs decision on different religious and non-religious communities (e.g. patients of color, healthcare providers, religious communities), influences of religious communities on the Dobbs decision, responses to this decision by religious communities, and spiritual care for patients and healthcare providers who have experienced religious or other forms of marginalization from abortion experiences and abortion practices. The committee particularly welcomes papers/panels with social scientific approaches to these topics.
Social Scientific Research on Religion as Ethical Practice (co-sponsored with the Ethics Unit)
We invite papers that explore intersections between social scientific research on religion and activism, solidarity, and social ethics. We are particularly interested in papers that analyze or use methods that challenge the researcher/subject relational frame, disrupt knowledge hierarchies, center the agency and epistemologies of communities outside of the academy, and/or explore how ethnographic methods influence ethical inquiry pursued in normative and/or descriptive modes. Examples of methods examined might include, but are not limited to, collaborative ethnography, participatory action research, and community-based participatory research.
Public Understanding of Religion (Co-sponsored with the Sociology of Religion Unit)
Including applied sociology of religion, scholars’ responsibilities to diverse publics, and more.
The Religion and Social Sciences Unit (RSS) supports scholarship at the intersection of the social sciences and religious or theological studies. Topic areas include the study of religious and theological questions through specific social scientific methodologies, the integration of theological and social scientific approaches to the study of religious communities and practices, and comparative assessments of current issues by humanities-based and social scientific methods. As always, we welcome proposals related to these topics.